Every Man a King
How a startup is tackling the public restroom shortage—one Throne at a time
—By Imani Ahmad
My heart crashes against my ribcage, threatening to escape. My footfalls grow heavier with each stride. Sweat cascades down my back in sheets. I’m slowing down. I won’t make it. I turn desperately to my right, my left. Not a bathroom in sight. I eye the nearest bush in defeat. My bladder emerges victorious once again, breathing a sigh of relief. I am left with nothing but a wilting plant and the acrid scent of shame.
There is a severe public bathroom crisis in the United States, making this humiliating scenario a grimly familiar reality for many. For a country that prides itself on being the world’s greatest economic power, the US has a mere 8 public toilets available per 100,000 people. This is in stark contrast with Iceland’s ratio of a whopping 56 toilets.
While this is a problem that affects every citizen—after all, the average adult uses the restroom around 5-6 times daily—certain populations are disproportionately impacted by this shortage, including the elderly, pregnant women, parents of young children, those with medical conditions, and many more. What are they to do if the next clean bathroom is miles away?
Jessica Heinzelman, Co-Founder and COO of Throne Labs, a startup that attempts to “make bathrooms lovable,” references a study conducted by hygiene brand Tork, saying, “44% of people report feeling anxious about using a restroom when away from home and 26% of people report missing out on a social event due to concerns about a restroom.” Responding to this need, the company rolled out a year-long pilot in partnership with the city of Ann Arbor this summer, introducing eight prefabricated smart restroom pods designed to evoke the comfort of home.
The public, privatized
The public restroom shortage in the United States is not a recent development, but rather, the result of at least a century of infrastructural neglect. In Northwestern University PhD candidate Rick Weinmeyer’s blog post, “The Public Reliance On Private Toilets,” he writes that soon after public restrooms’ introduction in the late 19th century, “officials universally bemoaned the price tag of their construction and maintenance. Public toilets transformed from a civic benefit to a civic burden, and most of them have continued to be shuttered over the last half century.” This rapidly-escalating decline of public restrooms has led the United States to where it stands today, with unfathomable ratios of public restrooms to state populations and even worse, leasing rules that are hostile to public relief solutions.
Nowadays, it is much more common for so-called “public” restrooms to have taken a different form. Most people have experienced the phenomenon of being guilted into purchasing an unwanted latte or a crocheted keychain in the nearest store, all so that they could use the restroom as a paying customer. Weinmeyer explains that “what most people now think of as a ‘public toilet’ would be more accurately described as a ‘publicly available toilet.’ These are the toilets offered by private businesses such as shopping centers, restaurants, and coffee shops.” These privately owned restrooms have been proven to be classist, with business owners denying anyone who doesn’t fit the profile of their “regular customer,” including unhoused individuals, people of color, and teenagers, citing concerns of vandalism and misuse. However, because of the private nature of the restrooms, business owners are legally able to pick and choose without repercussions, leaving many without a stable or reliable restroom to use freely.
Ann Arbor is one of several cities working to reverse this inequity. The city procured funding for the $500,000 one-year pilot program from their Major Grants Fund, the University of Michigan, and the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority (DDA). In an interview about the pilot program, Ann Arbor City Administrator, Milton Dohoney says, “Access to clean and safe public restrooms is a fundamental need that cities must address to ensure the well-being of our communities. By partnering with Throne, we are not only providing state-of-the-art facilities for our community but also setting a new standard for cities across the country.” Regardless of whether or not Throne Labs becomes a permanent fixture in Ann Arbor after the pilot ends, Dohoney assures that the data collected from the Thrones will “allow the city to better gauge the areas in which permanent public restrooms are most needed,” so that resources may be allocated appropriately and alleviate reliance on private businesses for relief.
A sanitation solution
In preparation for the pilot, the Throne Labs team worked alongside the City of Ann Arbor and the DDA, who “chose the locations where they thought the Thrones would deliver the greatest value to the community,” says Heinzelman. These locations target important zones in Ann Arbor that routinely experience high traffic and currently have a lack of infrastructure. Places such as the Farmer’s Market and Liberty Plaza Park attract a large crowd each week, and patrons would greatly benefit from a restroom that is central and easy to locate. More remote areas such Riverside park, which is a part of Ann Arbor’s Border-to-Border Trail initiative, are known as “restroom deserts,” where a public restroom is not just a benefit but a necessity for local runners, hikers, and passerby.
The restrooms themselves are prefabricated and modular in nature. Equipped with solar panels on their roofs and independent of plumbing or electrical hookups, they can be installed anywhere they are needed in a matter of hours without worries of not being up to code. This modular nature also eliminates the hundreds of thousands of dollars that would go into building, maintaining, and repairing a traditional public restroom. This is beginning to attract many cities with histories of vandalism and population issues, such as Los Angeles, which has greenlit up to 64 new Throne locations across their expansive Metro system—one of the busiest in the nation. The company is also looking to expand to similar cities including New York City and San Francisco.
To use a restroom, one simply scans a QR code located on the outside with their mobile device. They then text a code specific to that location in order to be granted access to the facility. Individuals without access to phones are encouraged, through flyers and signage near the Thrones, to procure physical access cards from the City Hall or the Delonis Center. This allows everyone to use them when they need to, regardless of identity. Once access is granted, a door slides open and the user is greeted with a cheesy mechanical fanfare beckoning them inside. They may then use the facility’s touch-less flush, sink, and door system to relieve themselves and proceed with their day. Functioning just as a conventional restroom would, the design provides the user with comfort and privacy in a much more sanitary and accessible manner, free of charge.
Fit for a king
The “Throne”—as the company has endearingly named it—is the antithesis to everything for which a conventional public restroom has become notorious. Where one would expect sterile porcelain walls, the Throne boasts a cascade of tropical leaves that transports its user to a jewel-toned jungle oasis. Unkempt, toilet paper-strewn floors are replaced with spotless linoleum. The distinctly pungent odor of bodily excrements is nowhere to be found, putting the user’s apprehensive nose at ease. Upon entering the Throne for the first time, U-M freshman, Nia Ahmad exclaims “Wow, it’s so much nicer than I expected. This feels like I’m in a real building!” Ahmad is a commuter, and drives 25 minutes to and from campus daily. Her only source of refuge during the long gaps in between classes is her car, a cafe, or a friend’s apartment. “When I need to use the bathroom, there aren’t a lot of clean options on Central Campus within walking distance. Most of the time I have to just hold it until I get home.” A solution such as the Throne seems to appeal to her because it provides the accessibility and comfort of home. This is all by design. Heinzelman explains, “We set out to build a bathroom solution that everyone wants to use; by providing value to everyone in a community, we will ensure there is ongoing support for bathroom infrastructure.”
“But how are these pristine conditions maintained?” you may be asking. Without proper management, publicly shared spaces such as restrooms fall into neglect and disrepair. To prevent this, Throne Labs uses a turnkey service model to ensure that any issues with quality or cleanliness are identified and addressed as quickly as possible.
“Throne takes a data-driven approach to maintaining our smart bathrooms,” Heinzelman explains. “Cleaning frequency is determined by usage data and real-time user feedback. Every time someone uses a Throne, they’re asked to rate the cleanliness. We use this data, along with historical usage patterns, to optimize cleaning schedules. Our local cleaners typically clean each unit multiple times per day, with high-traffic locations receiving more frequent service. If cleanliness issues arise between scheduled cleanings, our 24/7 monitoring team can dispatch on-demand cleaning.” This system ensures that community members feel personally responsible for the upkeep and longevity of the restrooms as invaluable stakeholders in the process. By being asked to rate their experience, users are assured that their opinions—positive or negative—are being heard.
Ann Arbor, heir to the Throne?
While Ann Arbor is known to many as the hub for innovation and tech startups and has received an “overwhelmingly positive reaction based on the messages received from users” according to Heinzelman, it may come as a surprise to some that Throne Labs would choose it as one of their inaugural cities, right alongside the much more populated areas of downtown Los Angeles and Washington DC. Heinzelman explains this choice, saying, “It’s exciting to see what we have built works equally well at a children’s playground in a suburb as it does in some of the grittiest parts of downtown Los Angeles. What we absolutely love about Ann Arbor is how it is the closest to realize our mission of meaningfully improving access to bathrooms. In Downtown Ann Arbor you’re never really more than a 5-minute walk from relief. We hope someday we can say that about all cities in America.”
Feature Photo: One of eight pilot Thrones in Ann Arbor, by Imani Ahmad